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What's old is new again....
Can Western armies use new technologies to reduce reliance not only on destructive artillery and air strikes, but also our finite stocks of precision munitions? Western armies have for some years used or tested not just drones, but robotic platforms, thermal-vision systems and related specialist equipment. So have China and Russia, with the latter testing Uncrewed Ground Vehicles (UGV) in combat in Syria. The technologies are no more mature than flying machines were in 1914, but in the hands of trained soldiers they promise an edge that our professional armies could plausibly maintain.
Powerful factors are driving warfare into cities: global urbanisation, the political significance of cities, their role as communication hubs and conflict amongst their populations. These all increase the likelihood and complexity of urban war. Compounding this, some combatants seek protection by operating close to civilians. As surveillance systems become increasingly adept at detecting targets in natural environments, urban areas still offer concealment. The widespread adoption of drones only increases their value.
In Ukraine soldiers now instinctively scan the sky before emerging from buildings. Yet little else of urban war is new, not the deadly exposure of streets and pervasive threat from surrounding buildings, nor the proximity of enemies, nor the danger when entering a building. Any corridor, room or staircase may conceal an explosive trap or a lurking enemy. The formula to make progress in such an environment has not changed either.
During the 1848 uprising in Milan, Austrian soldiers were picked off by revolutionaries with rifled muskets from upper windows. Progress required the soldiers to bring up cannon to batter defended buildings while others knocked holes through the walls to advance out of sight. Such urban tactics are forgotten and rediscovered every few decades. When jihadists seized Marawi in the Philippines in 2017, the Filipino armoured vehicles sent to respond were destroyed by rocket-propelled grenades fired from above. Soldiers advancing on foot were halted by sniper fire and then blown up by improvised explosive devices. The Filipinos learned. It took months of burrowing through buildings, constructing walls across fire-swept roads and systematically blasting each part of every building with artillery or aircraft bombs before the city was recaptured.
The early urban fighting in Ukraine appears to have followed a similar form. Defenders ambush attackers from in and around buildings. The latter suffer excessive casualties if they try to advance without massive prior bombardment. They must strike not only their next objective but also target any overlooking buildings from where defenders might shoot. As in the trenches during the first world war, this shelling stops as the attackers try to rush the stunned defenders before they can get out of their underground bunkers. But even if they succeed, the defenders’ artillery joins the fight and prevents the attackers from reinforcing or exploiting their advance. This pattern explains the slow progress.
One solution is to use robots. In the Winter War with Finland in 1939-40, the Soviet Union fielded a battalion of primitive radio-controlled “Teletanks”. These UGVs played a key role in breaking the Finnish defensive line, but development ceased with Stalin’s purges and the German invasion of the Soviet Union. In contrast, during the second world war the Germans developed wire- and radio-controlled armoured engineering vehicles for delivering large high-explosive demolition charges. These played an important part in destroying the Soviet defences of Sevastopol.
However, such UGVs had to be controlled at a distance by operators who were usually unable to see obstacles in front of the vehicle. This was overcome in the 1970s by bomb-disposal robots with cameras. In Iraq in the 2000s America’s forces rapidly adapted from these a variety of small scouting UGVs. Today there are vehicles that are agile, armoured and armed with cannon that can hit a door 2km away—all while the operator remains in cover. These will transform tactics by moving ahead of soldiers to seek and shoot.
Another approach is “invisibility”—hiding in smoke while seeing. In Western armies, the use of smoke to cover urban manoeuvres was once extensive but declined in the 1980s because of concerns over the toxic chemicals that were used. Yet thermal vision goggles can see through certain types of smoke cloud and “rebreather” equipment makes it possible to survive in them. Simple rockets with parachutes (to minimise risk to civilians as they fall) can swathe whole streetscapes in smoke. Suitably-equipped soldiers would be at an advantage.
The synergy of smoke-exploiting technologies and UGVs offers tactical opportunities. On the street, smoke hides moving soldiers, reducing the need for suppressive bombardment. UGVs can lead attacks, invisibly enveloping adversaries and clearing safe paths for infantry. If an enemy surrounded in this fashion does not withdraw, or hides below ground, their “defenders’ advantage” in a smoke-filled room-by-room, building-by-building fight degrades. They see little but are bright infra-red images in attackers’ eyepieces.
Such tactics offer a leap ahead in an urban environment for which armies are, at present, poorly prepared.They reduce reliance on bombardment and the consequent moral and political hazards of inflicting civilian casualties. Furthermore, robotics allow outnumbered Western armies to better confront enemies. Mastering such a fight will be very demanding, requiring initiative and technically competent soldiers with high levels of training. Yet this exactly describes Western professional armies, and would be hard for adversary armies to match. ■
Dr Charles Knight is a senior researcher at the University of New South Wales, Canberra and a lecturer in terrorism, asymmetric conflict and urban operations at Charles Sturt University. He previously served with the British and Australian armed forces.
Charles Knight on how the West can reduce the destructiveness of urban warfare
Charles Knight on how the West can reduce the destructiveness of urban warfare
The military expert says robotics and smoke offer an edge to Western soldiers
THE SMOULDERING ruins of Mariupol bear witness to how slow, difficult and bloody urban combat is. Efforts to make progress against a prepared defender invariably default to bombardment and bitter close combat. Holding back firepower only makes the fight slower and bloodier, with more military and civilian casualties. This ethical dilemma and the arithmetical inadequacy of today’s small armies to fight in big cities may explain why Western forces have shunned preparing to do so. This is despite a need for specialist equipment being obvious during battles like those for Fallujah in Iraq in 2004. Ukraine is a wake-up call.Can Western armies use new technologies to reduce reliance not only on destructive artillery and air strikes, but also our finite stocks of precision munitions? Western armies have for some years used or tested not just drones, but robotic platforms, thermal-vision systems and related specialist equipment. So have China and Russia, with the latter testing Uncrewed Ground Vehicles (UGV) in combat in Syria. The technologies are no more mature than flying machines were in 1914, but in the hands of trained soldiers they promise an edge that our professional armies could plausibly maintain.
Powerful factors are driving warfare into cities: global urbanisation, the political significance of cities, their role as communication hubs and conflict amongst their populations. These all increase the likelihood and complexity of urban war. Compounding this, some combatants seek protection by operating close to civilians. As surveillance systems become increasingly adept at detecting targets in natural environments, urban areas still offer concealment. The widespread adoption of drones only increases their value.
In Ukraine soldiers now instinctively scan the sky before emerging from buildings. Yet little else of urban war is new, not the deadly exposure of streets and pervasive threat from surrounding buildings, nor the proximity of enemies, nor the danger when entering a building. Any corridor, room or staircase may conceal an explosive trap or a lurking enemy. The formula to make progress in such an environment has not changed either.
During the 1848 uprising in Milan, Austrian soldiers were picked off by revolutionaries with rifled muskets from upper windows. Progress required the soldiers to bring up cannon to batter defended buildings while others knocked holes through the walls to advance out of sight. Such urban tactics are forgotten and rediscovered every few decades. When jihadists seized Marawi in the Philippines in 2017, the Filipino armoured vehicles sent to respond were destroyed by rocket-propelled grenades fired from above. Soldiers advancing on foot were halted by sniper fire and then blown up by improvised explosive devices. The Filipinos learned. It took months of burrowing through buildings, constructing walls across fire-swept roads and systematically blasting each part of every building with artillery or aircraft bombs before the city was recaptured.
The early urban fighting in Ukraine appears to have followed a similar form. Defenders ambush attackers from in and around buildings. The latter suffer excessive casualties if they try to advance without massive prior bombardment. They must strike not only their next objective but also target any overlooking buildings from where defenders might shoot. As in the trenches during the first world war, this shelling stops as the attackers try to rush the stunned defenders before they can get out of their underground bunkers. But even if they succeed, the defenders’ artillery joins the fight and prevents the attackers from reinforcing or exploiting their advance. This pattern explains the slow progress.
One solution is to use robots. In the Winter War with Finland in 1939-40, the Soviet Union fielded a battalion of primitive radio-controlled “Teletanks”. These UGVs played a key role in breaking the Finnish defensive line, but development ceased with Stalin’s purges and the German invasion of the Soviet Union. In contrast, during the second world war the Germans developed wire- and radio-controlled armoured engineering vehicles for delivering large high-explosive demolition charges. These played an important part in destroying the Soviet defences of Sevastopol.
However, such UGVs had to be controlled at a distance by operators who were usually unable to see obstacles in front of the vehicle. This was overcome in the 1970s by bomb-disposal robots with cameras. In Iraq in the 2000s America’s forces rapidly adapted from these a variety of small scouting UGVs. Today there are vehicles that are agile, armoured and armed with cannon that can hit a door 2km away—all while the operator remains in cover. These will transform tactics by moving ahead of soldiers to seek and shoot.
Another approach is “invisibility”—hiding in smoke while seeing. In Western armies, the use of smoke to cover urban manoeuvres was once extensive but declined in the 1980s because of concerns over the toxic chemicals that were used. Yet thermal vision goggles can see through certain types of smoke cloud and “rebreather” equipment makes it possible to survive in them. Simple rockets with parachutes (to minimise risk to civilians as they fall) can swathe whole streetscapes in smoke. Suitably-equipped soldiers would be at an advantage.
The synergy of smoke-exploiting technologies and UGVs offers tactical opportunities. On the street, smoke hides moving soldiers, reducing the need for suppressive bombardment. UGVs can lead attacks, invisibly enveloping adversaries and clearing safe paths for infantry. If an enemy surrounded in this fashion does not withdraw, or hides below ground, their “defenders’ advantage” in a smoke-filled room-by-room, building-by-building fight degrades. They see little but are bright infra-red images in attackers’ eyepieces.
Such tactics offer a leap ahead in an urban environment for which armies are, at present, poorly prepared.They reduce reliance on bombardment and the consequent moral and political hazards of inflicting civilian casualties. Furthermore, robotics allow outnumbered Western armies to better confront enemies. Mastering such a fight will be very demanding, requiring initiative and technically competent soldiers with high levels of training. Yet this exactly describes Western professional armies, and would be hard for adversary armies to match. ■
Dr Charles Knight is a senior researcher at the University of New South Wales, Canberra and a lecturer in terrorism, asymmetric conflict and urban operations at Charles Sturt University. He previously served with the British and Australian armed forces.
Charles Knight on how the West can reduce the destructiveness of urban warfare
